Dragonfly (search engine)

The Dragonfly project was an Internet search engine prototype created by Google that was designed to be compatible with China's state censorship provisions.[1][2][3] The public learned of Dragonfly's existence in August 2018, when The Intercept leaked an internal memo written by a Google employee about the project.[4][5] In December 2018, Dragonfly was reported to have "effectively been shut down" after a clash with members of the privacy team within Google.[6] However, according to employees, work on Dragonfly was still continuing as of March 2019, with some 100 people still allocated to it.[7]

In July 2019, Google announced that work on Dragonfly had been terminated.[8]

  1. ^ Smith, Noah (September 19, 2018). "Google's prototype Chinese search engine links searches to phone numbers". the Guardian. Retrieved September 26, 2018.
  2. ^ Conger, Kate; Wakabayashi, Daisuke (August 16, 2018). "Google Employees Protest Secret Work on Censored Search Engine for China". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 23, 2023. Retrieved September 26, 2018.
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  6. ^ Gallagher, Ryan (December 17, 2018). "Google's Secret China Project "Effectively Ended" After Internal Confrontation". The Intercept. Retrieved December 17, 2018.
  7. ^ Gallagher, Ryan (March 4, 2019). "Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search". The Intercept. Retrieved July 17, 2019.
  8. ^ "Google's Chinese search engine 'terminated'". BBC News. July 17, 2019. Retrieved July 17, 2019.